


The Way Back Home

by Nixxie



Series: AU-Naruto Universe: The tales of Rei, Kaede, Yasu, Nina, and Zerin [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Character Study, F/M, I'll add more tags later, M/M, Multi, Slow Burn, Story starts before Naruto and progresses through to Shippuden, honestly this is just me having fun with the naruto universe, we do not hate Sakura in this house
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:48:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25604575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nixxie/pseuds/Nixxie
Summary: Rei is the first born of the Kaminari clan, known to be traditional extremists in the Land of Lightning. Her people value sameness and anything outside of their norm is considered blasphemy. Rei has hidden one key aspect of her identity all her life in fear of her Father's threat that should she ever use ninjutsu he'll have her killed. The abnormality she holds is the ability to produce a black flame in place of regular fire, the birthmarks on the backs of her hands further mark her as an aberration.When faced with death Rei makes the first choice to reclaim her life. She takes a leap of faith and never looks back.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Original Female Character(s)
Series: AU-Naruto Universe: The tales of Rei, Kaede, Yasu, Nina, and Zerin [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1855825
Kudos: 8





	The Way Back Home

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first story in a series of 5. Basically I'll have 5 interconnecting stories that each tell a different side of the events happening in my Naruto universe. So there will be things happening behind the scenes, and if you want to see the full picture to everything it would require reading all 5 stories. The others will be featuring: Itachi Uchiha/OC, Sasuke Uchiha/OC, Deidara/OC and Orochimaru/OC. 
> 
> I've spent a long time with my OCs. They've changed a lot over the years. The idea for these fics was originally made in early 2010, when I was just a highschool student. I'm now 23 and a master's student, my writing has changed drastically and so have my OCs. Pretty much know that I've spent nearly 10 years with these OCs and I've done my best to iron out the kinks and beat the Mary Sue out of them. And as far as these fics go, please be rest assured that whatever you think if going to happen likely isn't going to be the case. I like to flip things on their head, and go a more unconventional route. That means that I will make this world I build as true to the Naruto material, but with enough of my own creativity to make it mine. Will there be a happy ending at the end of all this? You don't know, but I do. I've had this story planned for almost 10 years, getting more and more detailed and developing my OCs until they feel believable.
> 
> Also Sakura is going to shine in my stories bc fuck she's a queen and deserves more. So hell, these fics might just exist to ensure Sakura becomes the BAMF equal to Sasuke and Naruto in every way. 
> 
> Anyways, that's it from me. Some people like OCs, other's don't. Whatever. I'm having fun. 
> 
> Till next time, enjoy~

The night was dark, and the crescent moon had raised high into the midsummer sky. The air was cool, and a crisp wind blew from the north as it usually does in the Land of Lightning. For once the clouds had cleared away over the Kaminari valley, and allowed the stars to shine brightly against the blackness of the sky.

The valley is quiet, eerily so, situated between two mountains so tall that they touched the clouds. A slow flowing river runs through the valley and through the clan’s district before flowing miles more until reaching the ocean. Tall dark pine trees form a dense forest of shadows, where a layer of fog hovers over the ground. Rarely outsiders will venture into the Kaminari valley, but those who do speak of how the air feels thick, that they see shadows running through the trees, and that they can feel the creeping chill of being watched.

The Kaminari clan is affiliated with Kumogakure, living within the expansive borders of the Hidden village but rather far into the outskirts and separated from the majority of other clans and village people. Officials from Kumogakure rarely venture out to visit the valley because of its distance; so instead the leader of the Kaminari, Norio Kaminari, will occasionally make his appearances to report on his districts happenings.

In most cases the Raikage prefers to let the Kaminari be, as they function based off of strict traditions and extreme training regimens. The Kaminari, known to be one of the few shinobi clans in the Land of Lightning to use fire style jutsu, train their own children to become genin in teams of three. When it comes time for their Chunin exam they join the other Kumo genin and travel to the specified location to the exam. And their Jōnin are appointed by suggestion to the Raikage. In many cases Kaminari shinobi are appointed to the Kumogakure ANBU black ops division as tracker ninja or for their otherwise elite and deadly skills.

Rei is the first born of Norio Kaminari making her next in line to inherit leadership of the clan. However, she’s spent the majority of her life hiding a part of herself from her people. When Rei was five, her father began teaching her the way of the shinobi; beginning with ninjutsu. It was customary that all children with aspirations of one day becoming shinobi should learn the clans’ most basic fire jutsu and preform it. So Rei learned the hand seals and preformed the Fire Style: flaming palm jutsu. When the flame engulfed her right palm she was in awe to see that her fire dancing in her palm was not the flaming orange and yellow of the sun, but was black as the shadows of her valley. Her father, who had been horrified, had hence forth forbidden Rei from using ninjutsu. He told Rei that if he ever saw her use ninjutsu again, she would never become a shinobi and would be sent far _far_ away.

The Kaminari have a strict belief that anything different is blasphemy, unacceptable and a disgrace upon the clan. The clan had built a strong image of sameness; the people have black hair and red eyes, the vast majority can perform fire type jutsu, and many specialize in sword fighting. Anyone who strays from the imposed norm is shunned and believed to be a lesser clan member. Several over the years seem to have just disappeared. No one really talked about this.

Rei has grown up with the knowledge that if anyone ever saw her perform a fire jutsu she would immediately dishonor her father. She would dishonor her entire clan, the people she was meant to lead someday. So she lied to her sensei by saying that she was unable to perform ninjutsu. Her sensei instead trained her in the ninja arts of taijutsu and swordsmanship when Rei discovered that she really struggled to learn genjutsu.

Rei trained hard to make up for her inabilities and became a skilled taijutsu user and a master swordsman with her katana. She was far from the strongest in her clan; without the use of ninjutsu she always found herself at a disadvantage. It pained her that she had to hide something so fundamental about herself.

So she began to train in secret, regardless of the fear she had of her father. She started to slowly teach herself ninjutsu by memorizing the hand seals and chakra regulation that it would take to perform the techniques. It was hard work, and admittedly produced a slow progress in her ninjutsu capabilities as she was only ever able to train during the dead of night outside of her clan’s valley.

Many elders in the clan openly thought that Rei was unfit to inherit leadership of the clan – that instead it should go to her younger brother Kazuo. Over the nearly twenty years of Rei’s life she’s experienced the slowly festering displeasure her father had taken in her. Rei did not meet his standards, and frankly it was already a problem that his first born was a girl.

The Kaminari held strictly to the tradition that the male is dominant in the household. A female leader like Rei would be the first in over a century, and it was widely understood that whoever she chose to marry would become the head of the clan; she would become a bartering piece for the next line of leaders. But still they propagated the belief that family, and their sense of home were their most important ideals.

As a child, Rei was very outspoken about how stupid it was that just because she was a girl, it didn’t mean she was any less than a male counterpart. The women of the Kaminari clan are strong shinobi, but once they marry they are expected to devote themselves to building a family. And because of this Rei found that she did not ever want kids. All she wanted to do was become strong enough to challenge her clans’ antiquated beliefs, and to perhaps shift the next generation of her clan into a more equal and understanding people.

Now, as an adult, Rei had learned when to speak and when to keep silent. She learned to listen to the people around her and understand that her idealistic belief that she could change her people would be a lot more difficult task than she’d thought as a kid. The only way she would ever grow as a person depended on how she trained herself to get stronger both physically and mentally.

So far the physical aspect was improving, but mentally she’d developed a sort of fear of her father. He was the one who could ultimately end her life if he chose to follow the suggestions of the clan elders.

In the past few years her father had grown colder and more distant than he ever had before. When he would speak to her it was always with a cold gaze and a harsh voice, and when he ordered her to do something it was to be done without argument. Her father is leader of the clan for a reason after all, he’s a strong and seasoned shinobi; skilled with a range of powerful ninjutsu and genjutsu abilities. He’s also a master swordsmen, and proficient in using many forms of weapons. He was even ANBU in his younger days. Rei knew that she lacked the ability to challenge him at this point.

But tonight was not any different than any other night for Rei. In the late hours of the night her clan mates had retired to their homes and the forest had gone still. It had been two weeks since the last time she’d climbed out of the valley to train, and Rei was itching to work on her ninjutsu.

So quietly, she dressed in her usual shinobi wear; a stretchy, sleeveless tight black body suit that went all the way to her neck that has an oval cutout on her chest and with small slits over her shoulders, where the open space is filled with black fishnet mesh; she also wore long black fingerless gloves that reached over her shoulders and shin length closed toe standard shinobi boots. She tied a blue sash around her hips before securing her katana in the fabric. And finally she tied her Hidden Cloud hitai-ate over her forehead.

Rei crept through the shadows of houses and buildings before heading for her exit in a less populated portion of the district where she could climb the outer wall without any eyes watching her. When she made it over the wall she took off on a run through the fog filled undergrowth of the dark pine trees. She was careful to stay as silent as possible, and to mask her chakra signature as best she could. This forest had never unnerved her, Rei found the darkness to be comforting and often thought that she felt more out of place inside the walls of her own clans district.

After a decently paced run up and out of the valley, Rei ran further still to reach a secluded clearing in the forest. It was her usual place where she practiced. She took a moment to gaze up at the sky, it really was beautiful tonight. The wind swept through the trees, and ruffled her waist length black hair, blowing and tangling at her back. She breathed in deeply, closed her eyes and listened to the wind; to the forest; to the sound of a pack of wolves running through the undergrowth not far into the distance; and to the swooshing sound of something flying through the air.

_Wait._

But it was too late; Rei opened her eyes just as she felt the blade of a kunai embed itself into her left shoulder. She cried out in pain and staggered in her balance before righting herself and pulling the kunai out to throw it aside. Blood began to soak her clothes and a sharp pain radiated all through her left arm. Then there was the swooshing sound again, as several projectiles were being thrown her way.

Rei grabbed the hilt of her sword and pulled it out in time to swing around and deflect the three kunai and two shuriken that had been fired at her back. She steadied her breathing and tried to catch a glimpse of whoever was hiding in the trees.

A shadow to her right took off running to the left, but then another and another until Rei could count five shadows in the trees circling Rei in the wide open clearing. It would be trouble for Rei if any of these shadows were long-range fighters, as she was still working on her ninjutsu and did not feel comfortable fighting with it just yet. So quite honestly she was at a disadvantage in this fight.

The way that the shadows moved, silently and without hesitation, Rei knew that these people were from her clan. Because after all, it was how she moved through the darkness as well. They weren’t really bothering to mask their chakra signatures either. Their clear intent was to fight her.

_But why?_

Why would her own people be attacking her? Was a coup taking place? Did some of her clan members go rogue? But then a devastating thought that made her blood freeze entered her mind. _Had her father ordered this attack?_

Rei gripped her katana tighter in front of her. She had to give herself some credit here, with all the training she’d devoted her time to she was one of the better taijutsu users in her clan, and she was certainly one of the best swordsmen too. She was fast and she had a decent amount of stamina with an above average chakra supply. If she fought smart, she could make it out of this.

 _But where could she go?_ She asked herself suddenly.

If this was her father’s doing then she couldn’t go home. She knew as much that the Raikage probably wouldn’t get involved in this; it seemed that as long as things were kept quiet then there wouldn’t be any problems. She’d heard stories from her mother of when one of her teammates had disappeared from the district one night. The intent in this attack is surely to kill her.

“Rei Kaminari.” a deep male voice sounded from the shadows of the trees.

Rei kept her guard up, but her eyes zeroed in on the direction that the voice came from in front of her. She didn’t speak, but she shifted her footing to allow her a better stance to use her chakra to enhance her speed once she chose to attack.

“You have two options; to fight us and die, or to return to the valley and formally give up your right to future leadership of the clan.” The man’s voice held no emotion.

“Is this by my father’s order?” Rei asked, her own voice coming out icy.

“ _Yes._ ”

That was all she needed to know. But Rei could not deny the chill that ran down her spine. If she were to return to the valley and do as they said, to formally resign herself of future leadership, she would be killed anyways or bartered off as a marriage proposal to keep her restrained. That is not the life that Rei wanted to live. She would not submit.

“You can tell my father to shove his order up his ass.” She sneered. She may fear her father, but hell, she’d always wanted to say something like that.

For all she knew she could have just signed her own death warrant right then, but she had to believe that she could get through this. _Fight smart_ , that’s what her sensei always said. If she let her guard down, then she would be taken advantage of. If she faltered for even a second, she would probably be overpowered and killed. Even after fighting in skirmishes during the Third Great Shinobi war, she had never been completely alone. But compared to then, she was a lot more confident in her abilities. _Yes_ , she could do this. She wasn’t going to die tonight.

_______________

She survived, barely, but she survived. They had been relentless in their attacks; each one was skilled in something different. One was a weapons specialist, who had used their precision with kunai, shuriken and senbon to wound her. The second was a fire style user, their flames were incredibly wild and the user had allowed them to spread through the forest hoping to cut Rei off as she ran. The third was a skilled taijutsu user, who had probably underestimated Rei’s skill because she had managed to best him and kill him.

The fourth, Rei discovered was a tracker ninja and sensory type. After a long chase through the mountain ranges Rei had set her sights on killing that one next. It had been an incredible close call that had almost led to her own demise by falling from a cliff. The tracker had fallen, but grabbed her as they went down. Rei had managed to get a grip on one of the ledges as she fell, but the tracker nin had fallen into the abyss.

The final one had been exceptional in many aspects. He was strong, much stronger than Rei was, and he managed to land a critical hit that Rei knew cracked several ribs on her right side making it difficult to breathe. It came to a point where Rei knew she was going to lose if she did not devise a strategy to make it look like she had died.

Her chakra was lower than it had ever been, she was reaching the point of exhaustion and her speed had slowed considerably. But when the chance came that the fire style user had cornered her on a cliff overlooking a fast flowing river she had a choice to either jump or die for sure. She had been careful to listen to the rumble of a waterfall, knowing that that was another obstacle that she would have to face. If this worked, they would not follow her. They would think her dead because the river would eventually carry her to the ocean, or because the current was torrentially strong. However, it was a gamble that Rei was willing to take.

She jumped when the fire style user blew a fireball into her direction. The heat of it burned her right leg and arm. And as she fell through the air, the weapons specialist hit her twice in the back with two shuriken and the final man had used a lightning style technique to strike her from a distance.

Rei had hit the water without a chance to take a proper breath, and the pain of their final attack was so immense that she felt as though she was surely done. The fast flowing current carried her over the waterfall and she did not fight it. Through will alone she had managed to mask her chakra completely, as the river carried her further downstream coughing and sputtering as she gasped for air. And when it became too much to keep her head above water she was able to get hold of an overhanging tree to pull herself to the shore.

It really is incredible what a person can do when faced with certain death. By all accounts she should have died. Hell, she was bleeding pretty badly right now even, the fireball she’d been hit with had burned right up the side of her entire right leg and arm with severe burns and the lightning jutsu she’d been hit with had left her feeling numb and disorientated her back radiated with pain. She’s been able to twist her arm behind her back to pull the shuriken from her, which had also been incredibly painful. She could still barely breathe, and the coldness of the water did not help because now she could feel an intense chill set into her body, freezing her and making her shiver terribly. The other wounds she’d sustained; the kunai to her shoulder, several cuts along her arms and deeper ones on both her legs were still bleeding. And her entire right side ached with a sharp pressure.

Rei had no supplies, nor the ability to heal. She had even lost her sword when she’d gone over the waterfall. Rei knew that if she didn’t find help, her injuries would kill her. She was exhausted, but the thought that she’d fought so hard for nothing just wouldn’t satisfy her. Rei would not allow herself to accept defeat, she just couldn’t. Tears came to her eyes from the frustration and anger she felt at the events of tonight; and because of how cruel and unfair this all felt.

She did take a moment to wonder what her mother would think of all this; would she be upset? Would she be angry with her husband? Rei had always thought her mother to be a sensible woman, a bit too submissive but she was honorable. What about her younger brother Kazuo? He was an incredibly kind young boy of ten; he and Rei got along very well, and Rei had doted on him frequently. And what about her younger sister, Shiki? She and Rei had never really seen eye to eye on things, even though Shiki was only seven she wanted to emulate herself into a sort of reincarnation of their father.

Rei shivered from the cold, and from the thoughts of her family. She had few friends in the clan, and her sensei, Yuichi Kaminari, had joined ANBU several years ago and hadn’t returned to the clan’s district since. Her old teammates, whom Rei had kept close, would probably wonder what had become of her. Perhaps her father would say that Rei was killed by rogue ninja, maybe he’d say she killed herself, or that she had died during a mission. Either way, Rei knew that neither Raiden nor Tadashi would think so low of her. For they both knew she was a lot more skilled than her father gave her credit for. They would question and look for answers, and they would look for her.

Rei loved them both, but if she was going to live she would need to cover her tracks, make sure that no one could ever know she survived. She needed to leave the Land of Lightning because it sickened her that the Raikage would do nothing to prevent the cruelty and extremism of her clan. And she would have to leave the home she’d known all her life behind, all her people, her familiar valley and tall mountains. The thought of never seeing her forest or the twin peaks standing guard over her valley was heart breaking. But she decided to go to the one other place she’d ever been before; the Village Hidden in the Leaves. It was there that she had once done her chunin exam when she was fifteen. There was a chance they would accept her, albeit a small one, but she had to try.

To create a bandage of sorts, Rei used her blue sash by cutting it with the shuriken and securing it over the more deep cuts, and took notice to the cuts that were deeper than the others. She winced when she inspected the burn she received on her right leg and arm. It wasn’t as bad as it could be, but it would certainly pose a problem if it got infected. So she did her best to clean it up and cut up her long black gloves to cover as much of her leg as she could leaving her arm as it didn’t seem as bad. Rei then kept the two shuriken, as they were her only weapons now and stashed them in a pocket she had on her left leg.

She looked to the sky once more that night, at the way the moon was still so bright and the stars kept shining. Rei could feel the heavy weight of sadness and anger at what had happened tonight. She had become tired of her clans traditions, beliefs and cruelty many years ago. It hurt her immensely that she was really worth nothing to her people- _to her father_. But Rei could feel a growing sense of hope for the future.

She breathed in deeply, then reached up to untie her hitai-ate from around her head. She held it firmly in her hand and questioned how she had spent so long feeling so loyal to this country when it held no loyalty to her. Rei brushed her finger over the symbol for the Hidden Cloud Village and bit her lip at the pain she felt in her chest. It was a symbol of her worth as a shinobi, of the loyalty she put forth as she fought for her country.

 _But_ , she thought, if her country was unwilling to fight for her, then she shouldn’t feel the pressure to sacrifice herself without cause. Rei tossed it into the fast flowing river and began her run south.

_______________

Rei ran for four days, only resting when she absolutely needed it because she did not want to risk the potential of anyone following her, or getting caught in potential enemy ninja territory. The chill of the river water had stayed with her, and on the dawn of the second day she had developed a violent cough that shook her body to its core.

She had used too much of her chakra to increase her speed, and by the end of the third day and well into the night she had very nearly given up. Her wounds weren’t scabbing over very well because of her constant pace, her burns had begun to blister and chafe against her bandages which only caused her more pain, and her chest heaved with every breath she took. To try to lessen the pain on her right side, she wrapped her right arm firmly around her waist. The pressure seemed to help a little. Her body was going to fall apart on her if she was not careful. And she could not risk using anymore chakra or it might just kill her.

It was through will power alone that she ran still. Sleep, hunger and pain were forgotten. It was only the hope that once she reached Konoha she would be safe that kept her going. She pushed on into the fourth day.

By now it was late into the night of the fourth day, well into the AM hours and Rei found herself stumbling along the gravel path leading to Konoha. The only light to lead her way was the moon high in the sky. Lights from the village could be seen in the distance, and Rei would’ve smiled if she had the energy to spare.

Her feet ached, her muscles were tense and sore, her right leg burned with pain and she shuddered as coughs wracked her lithe form. She was so close to making it to the village, so close that she wanted to cry in relief. But suddenly this short distance left felt like a greater journey than the one she had already completed. With each step she took she feared that she would fall, knowing that if she did she would not have the strength to get up.

Rei’s breathing was ragged, and every few minutes another violent cough would wrack her body to the core, blurring Rei’s vision and making her stumble forward. She was at her maximum, there was no denying this. No amount of will power, hope, or sentiment could change the fact that her body could not withstand anymore. This was the end.

That’s when she heard it; the quick light footed gate of someone running through the forest to her right. Rei nearly panicked with the thought that it was someone who might’ve tracked her from the Land of Lightning. There would be no way she could even attempt a fight in her current condition.

The shadow in the trees stopped moving abruptly to stare at her. Rei had no cover where she stood in the middle of the gravel path. She was sure that her current physical state was probably haggard; with blood smeared over her arms and hands, her skin pale from loss of blood and exhaustion, her inky black hair tangled and knotted. She probably looked more dead than alive.

A man stepped out from the shadow of the trees and through her blurring vision Rei tried to take in everything she could of him. He was tall, and his silver hair stuck up and spiked out into all directions. The man wore black pants with a greyish sort of top, long black fingerless gloves with grey armguards. A mask in the design of a dog covered his face. Rei could not see a village indicator anywhere, and for the life of her she did not think she’d ever seen someone dressed like that before. On the man’s leg he wore a kunai and shuriken pouch, and on his back Rei spotted the handle of a sword. So he was indeed a shinobi.

Rei watched pensively as the masked man seemed to study her all the while remaining silent. She could feel herself swaying on her feet, so Rei tried to steady herself. The man didn’t seem like he was going to attack her, but his body language didn’t give anything away either. He was at a perfect distance to attack or defend. Rei decided that she should probably speak first.

She opened her mouth to speak, but was hit violently by a severe cough. Her body trembled and convulsed as Rei lifted her left hand to her mouth to try to preserve some of her dignity. But when she coughed a mouthful of blood passed her lips and dripped through her fingers to splash onto the gravel path. Rei’s red eyes widened as her vision blurred and a wave of vertigo hit her, making her legs buckle and she began to fall. She’d exceeded her limits.

It seemed that just before she hit the ground she had been caught. She tried her best to focus her eyes and understand what had just happened, and by then she had been picked up into the arms of the man wearing the mask. Rei still didn’t know who he was, and she was nearing a panic attack because she wouldn’t be able to protect herself against anything he might do.

“ _Who are you?_ ” her voice was but a creaking whisper like the wind.

He didn’t answer, instead beginning a run as he held Rei close to his chest.

“ _Where are you taking me?_ ” Rei demanded more forcefully making her voice crack.

“To get you help.” His voice was firm and did not waver.

Rei decided she could trust him, it was the conviction in his voice that proved his intentions to her. So she stopped her pitiful excuse for a struggle she’d tried to put up in his arms. She then found what little strength she’d had left leave her. But Rei lifted her burned right arm to place her hand upon the man’s chest as a way to express her thanks to the stranger. Her eyes drifted shut, and Rei did not fight the call of sleep.

Rei woke three times before she finally managed to get a grasp of her surroundings. The first time, she had only briefly been aware of her body being placed down on a soft surface. The second time she had opened her eyes to the nighttime. And with what little energy she had, she looked around to see a figure of a man turned away from her looking out a window, and then she slipped and fell unconscious one more. The third time, Rei opened her eyes to stare up at a grey ceiling in a room lit by harsh fluorescent lights.

It took her several moments to trace back through her memories of what had happened. She recalled her four day journey across countries to make it to Konoha, the pain she felt, and the figure of a man in a mask. Rei let her eyes scan the room, and found that there was no longer a window.

She could feel an uncomfortable burning in her right leg and arm; clearly she hadn’t been healed. But she also felt the sharp pain radiating up her right side still making it difficult to breathe. When she tried to move her right hand to apply pressure to her hip, she discovered that her wrist had been bound to the railing on the side of the bed. When she tried her left, she found it bound as well.

Forcing herself to sit up on the cot, Rei looked around the stark white room. There wasn’t really anything inside it, except a table to her right and what looked like a giant mirror on the wall in front of her. When Rei looked at herself in the mirror, she wasn’t sure it was really her. The woman who stared back at her, still dressed in her ripped black body suit, had deep purple bruises that traveled up her arms and stained the skin of her neck and chest. Her complexion looked sickly and paper thin, with her skin too pale and her black hair dull and askew. Cuts littered her arms, most of which had scabbed over. And her _eyes_ , her red eyes looked haunted in a way that she’d never expected. They looked soulless and the darkness under them looked purple with exhaustion.

Rei’s thoughts were beginning to run. She didn’t know where she was. And when she tugged on the restraints on her wrists, she could feel her anxiety beginning to worsen. Her chakra levels were low, too low for her liking. Whoever had put her here clearly had also been draining her chakra while she slept. This as well put Rei on edge.

She could only think of two places that she could be; Konoha, or perhaps she hadn’t been careful enough to cover her tracks and someone from her clan had discovered she was still alive and tracked her down. If this place is in any way connected to her father, she would be dead within the next twenty-four hours. Rei could feel herself beginning to panic, and she rather violently yanked at the restraints on her wrists, feeling them dig in and break through the flesh.

Rei wasn’t sure how long it had been, but when the door to her right opened, and a woman dressed in white scrubs and a white face mask entered. Rei was inching towards hysteria. The woman briefly met her gaze, but didn’t say anything. Instead, she walked to the table, and pulled a few things out from her pockets.

“Where am I?” Rei demanded forcefully, making her voice come out hoarse. “Who are you?”

Silence was the only answer Rei received.

The woman turned around and she held a needle in her right hand. And she wordlessly started to walk towards Rei. Rei’s heart began to beat frantically as she started to panic and once more violently yank and pull at her restraints, this time she felt blood begin to roll off her balled fists.

“ _STOP!_ ” Rei screamed when the woman tried to grab hold of her shoulder.

Tears were beginning to threaten to fall from her eyes, and with as much force as she had she moved to make sure the woman couldn’t stick her with the needle. In an attempt to draw her chakra to her hands Rei found that she had nearly enough to push into her finger tips so she could draw upon her black fire and cut through the rope that held her restraint. So she tried to force the chakra through her right hand, until she performed the single hand sign and managed a small flame that allowed her to cut through.

Using her right hand she attempted to push the woman away from her. But she found little strength in the action, as she was now dealing with the fatigue of overworking herself of chakra and very nearly exhausting all she had.

“PLEASE, _STOP_!” She begged.

Tears now fell freely from her eyes as she thrashed and screamed in the woman’s grasp. Rei knew she wouldn’t be able to fight for much longer. But that was when the door opened for a second time, and the woman stepped aside to reveal a man with wild silver hair, and most of his face covered by his black face mask and head band. It only took a second for Rei to remember the features of the man who had found her outside the village.

But Rei was still terrified by what was happening. Tears fell from her eyes without restraint, and she could feel the sticky blood that coated her wrists, and yet still her body ached. A pounding headache was growing at the back of her skull, and her eyes began to hurt. The room started to feel like it was spinning.

The woman moved away from Rei, and the man then sat on the side of the bed.

“Please, I don’t know where I am! I just want to be safe. I just need to get away from my – my father, my clan!” Rei cried, desperate to be listened to. “I’ve j-just, God, I-”

Rei just cried, sobbing into her hands and throwing away her dignity in front of the man with the nice voice. Her chest began to burn, forcing a rough cough past her lips as she covered them with her palms. When she looked down at her palms she couldn’t be sure if she’d coughed up more blood or if it had already been there.

“What is your name?” he asked, then reached for her other restraint and undid the clasp holding her wrist.

“Rei Kaminari.” She answered, managing to sound a little stronger than she actually felt at the moment.

Without realizing she was doing so, Rei began scratching at the backs of her hands. The birthmarks that she’d been born with one on each hand in the shape of a flame marked her as different amongst her clan. Without her gloves she had no way of hiding them. Her nails dug into her skin, drawing blood as she scratched and shook with residual fear.

“Where are you from?” the silver haired man asked.

“The Land of Lightning.” Rei answered, her voice rough and shaking a little.

“And you are a kunoichi.” he said, more as a fact than a question.

“Yes.”

“Rei,” He said her name slowly to gain her attention. “You are in an underground facility in Konohagakure under surveillance.” He explained calmly.

Rei could still feel her heart pounding in her chest. She knew that they were just following their regular protocol. After all, it wasn’t like Kumo and Konoha had a very amicable history together. But still, for all she had endured she was feeling a little frustrated.

“If you cooperate completely, I’m sure there will be no problems.” He continued in his slow and calm sounding voice.

“I came here to ask for safety!” Rei exclaimed, feeling like she needed to make him believe her intentions.

“And you shall have it, if you adhere to the villages’ terms and willingly answer all our questions…. Can you do that?” he asked, then moved to pull his headband up from covering his left eye which revealed a long scar.

“Yes. I- I can do that.” Her tears began to slow, however Rei realized that she was still trembling and her chest still burned. “But please, _please_ , I can’t go back. I just- _I just can’t. Don’t turn me away. Please…_ ”

The silver haired man sat back a little, and Rei watched as his single charcoal eye seemed to study her. Rei looked into his eye and felt herself begin to calm down; she stopped trembling but Rei was now beginning to feel the pain of what she’d done to her hands and the ache in her bones from over using her chakra.

Rei glanced down at her hands and stilled when she realized just how much of a bloodied mess her wrists and hands had become. Blood had dried and caked under her fingernails, and scratches were dug into the backs of her hands. The restraints she’d pulled against had dug into the skin on her wrists as she had thrashed and done all she could to free herself. Rei had really done damage to herself without even noticing. Gently, she tried to clear some of the blood away as some of the deeper scratches were still bleeding. The silver haired man watched her intently, but Rei didn’t feel threatened by his presence.

Several moments of silence passed between them. The silver haired man seemed to just watch her. Briefly Rei thought to herself that he couldn’t be much older than she was. His gaze didn’t seem heavy or pitying. It surprised her just how much she relaxed in his presence, and realized then that as she sensed his chakra it felt cool and calm beside her. It made her muscles loosen and that’s when the exhaustion hit again in full force. Rei swayed in her sitting position as her eyes fluttered closed and open again. Her chakra was too low, forcing her body to shut down whether she wanted to or not.

“For now I think it best you get some rest.” He explained. “We’ll talk more when you wake up.”

Rei was suddenly hit with anxiety at the thought of being alone without the only person who’d shown her any kindness. Her wide red eyes met his, and he seemed to sense her unease.

“You are safe here. No one is going to hurt you.” He promised, holding her gaze to keep her grounded. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

He opened the scarred eye to reveal a blood red eye with three tomoe. Rei felt pretty sure she knew what she was looking at as the tomoe’s began to slowly spin. Her mind started to slow as the spinning got faster, and she stopped worrying. She felt herself falling back against the pillows on the bed, and her eyes shut to a peaceful darkness.

_____

Rei awoke to the same white and grey room with the harsh fluorescent lights bearing down on her. But this time her wrists weren’t tied to the bedframe. Her arms felt heavy when she lifted her wrists to look at them, finding a sealed cuff around both. Her entire body felt heavy, as though she’d been asleep for a long time. But nothing _hurt_. It seemed her burns and cuts had been treated, her right arm was still wrapped in bandages. And her ribs weren’t making it difficult for her to breathe. Her chest didn’t burn anymore either.

For a long while Rei stayed staring up at the ceiling, wondering to herself just what exactly was going to happen to her. She also thought to herself that really nothing could be worse than what she’d run away from. Whether she continued on as a shinobi might not even be an option anymore depending on what people out of her knowledge decided. Perhaps she was a fool for running across countries to the Hidden Leaf even knowing the history between Kumo and Konoha.

Tears started to gather in her eyes and slip down the sides of her face. It was a gut decision she’d made in the midst of a terrible situation. _Did she just put herself into another terrible situation?_ Rei really had no clue anymore. Her entire world had been flipped upside down. All her goals, dreams, purpose, everything just gone.

For the Kaminari _family is everything_. You live and die beside your family in the tight knit community. Rei always found it ironic how they could preach this but damn all those they deemed _different_. For all the extremism and fear she’d experienced, Rei still had a deep pit in her chest when she thought of how much she’d miss her valley and the dark forests. And again, her thoughts slipped towards her teammates, sensei, younger brother and mother. _Would they know by now she’d disappeared?_ Rei couldn’t remember if she’d made plans with any of them for the upcoming days. But then again, she had no idea how much time had passed. _How long had she been asleep?_

Rei sat up in the bed, now noticing she’d been dressed in a white hospital gown. Both her hands were wrapped in bandages covering the damaged she’d done to herself. This time, looking in the mirror the woman looking back didn’t look like a breathing corpse. Her long inky black hair fell framing her face. Her skin didn’t look bruised anymore, but her natural paleness seemed even more paper white in the drab coloring of the room. Her red eyes still looked haunted, they’d hardened in a way she never thought she’d see in herself. Perhaps it had been a long time coming and this whole situation was just what cemented it. Rei couldn’t help but think she looked scary. If she saw someone with her eyes in the past she would’ve steered clear of them.

She spent a long time just staring into the mirror, wondering what would happen next. Would she see that man with the nice chakra again? Rei hoped so. Not seeing a point in just sitting in bed, Rei pushed herself to the side and pulled back the sheets. Unsure of her strength after pushing herself to the absolute physical limit possible and the extent of the healing she’d received, Rei was slow to put weight onto her feet. She wobbled a bit, but ultimately stood just fine. The hospital gown reached her knees.

Rei walked to the door the nurse had come through, and twisted the knob open slowly opening the door. Standing directly outside her door was a man dressed in the same outfit the silver haired man from before was. He wore a mask that looked like a bird, with spikey brown hair. Though Rei couldn’t see his eyes, she suddenly realized she couldn’t sense any chakra whatsoever. It seemed there was a block in her system, where everything suddenly just felt silent. Rei felt panic rising and stumbled backwards into her room and fell before scooting back towards the bedframe.

“I-I’m sorry.” She raised her arms, as though prepared for an attack, hiding her face into her shoulder and closing her eyes.

_There’s no point in fighting. You don’t even know where you are. You have no weapons. Your chakra is blocked. It doesn’t matter what they do to you._

Several moments of just silence passed before Rei peeked away from her shoulder to look back at the brown haired man in the mask. He stood in front of her, offering his hand to pull her up from the ground. Rei hesitantly took it, feeling his strength as he easily lifted her.

“Please just wait here.” He said, not sounding unfriendly. “I need to make some calls. But now that you’re up we’ll have several questions for you.”

Rei nodded, unsure of her voice and leaned back against the bed.

“I’ll have someone come with clothes for you to get dressed.” The masked man said, nodded to himself, and then closed the door.

Not long later a nurse arrived with what turned out to be Rei’s black jumpsuit mended and replacement black gloves. The blue sash wasn’t replaced, but she had used it as a makeshift bandage after all. Rei was just happy to have something she was comfortable in. The nurse pulled curtains over the mirror, and now Rei dumbly realized it was a two-way mirror the entire time. People had been watching her. Perhaps this is why that silver haired man with the nice chakra knew to come for her? When she’d finished dressing, the nurse opened the door to the brown haired masked man again.

“This way.” He said, and began leading the way down a concrete hallway,

Somewhere along the way a second masked person in a similar uniform had shown up behind Rei. Boxing her in, and forcing her to keep up. They passed by several unmarked doors until reaching one that similarly looked no different from the rest. She was led inside the dark shadowed room where a table was set in the middle and a chair at its center. Another mirror was on the wall. Once she was inside, the door was closed behind her, and yet again Rei found herself alone.

Her heart was thumping in her chest. The rising need to just _bolt_ was becoming stifling. It seemed her fight or flight instincts were kicking in, and the panic was not subsiding.

The door crashed open behind her, hitting the wall with a violent thump making Rei jump from the unexpected fright. When she turned around a man with a severely scarred face and black bandana covering his head stood in the doorway. He looked _huge_ , dressed in a black trench coat and heavy boots. And as if on autopilot, Rei’s feet were backing up until she found her back pressed against the opposing wall.

“ _Sit._ ” The man ordered.

With now shaking legs, Rei sat in the only chair of the room. The man slammed the door closed behind him, and then moved to stand staring down at her from the other side of the table. Rei felt frozen in place. The air suddenly felt too hot, her chest burned, and she realized she’d stopped breathing at some point. Unconsciously she began to scratch at the backs of her hands again.

The man just stared down at her with dark piercing eyes. The scars on his face made it look like he’d gone through hell and stayed there to enjoy it a while. He crossed his arms over his broad chest and towered over her. Rei thought to herself that he had to be at least 6’5.

“You will answer every question I ask, when I ask it. If I see any hesitation or if you refuse to answer, rest assured there are ways for me to get you to talk.” His rough voice reverberated off the walls in the room making Rei feel very much singularly alone in that moment.

 _No one cares where I am. He could kill me right now and no one would know_.

“ _Understand?_ ” he barked at her.

“Y-yes.” Her voice sounded small in comparison.

“Let’s start easy then. What is your name?” He questioned with cold black eyes still boring into her.

Rei offhandedly thought it odd he wasn’t going to write anything down.

“What did I just say about _hesitation_?” he growled out after one too many seconds had passed.

“Rei Kaminari.” She blurted out to make up for her mistake.

“Good. _Age?_ ”

“Nineteen, almost twenty.”

“ _Land of origin?_ ”

“The Land of Lightning.”

“ _Shinobi rank?_ ”

“Recently made a jounin.”

“ _Of what village?_ ”

“I have no village anymore.”

A hand slammed down on the table, making Rei flinch and sit back in terror.

“ _What village sent you to Konoha?_ ” He demanded.

“I was not sent to Konoha!” Rei cried out desperately.

“Are you aware of the long standing political issues between Kumo and Konoha? You are an enemy shinobi in the Land of Fire, sent to spy on Konoha. _Confess_.”

“ _I –I_ -. “ Rei stammered feeling panic rising and tears build in her eyes before being cut off.

“ _You are an enemy shinobi sent from Kumogakure, sent here on a mission. Confess._ ” The man now leaned across the table, dark eyes boring into Rei’s red ones. She could smell his breath as it hit her face.

“ _I ran away_.” Involuntary tears streamed down her face as she cried out. “My father was going to have me killed unless I did what he said. _I RAN AWAY!”_

 _“I don’t need some fucking half-assed sob story!_ ” he yelled right in her face, inches away. “ _CONFESS._ ”

Rei began to shake, tremors wracked her lithe frame and it felt like her heart had stopped beating as her blood ran cold. _So this is what I ran towards after surviving my fathers’ order?_ _Fine_ , she thought to herself. _Fuck it._

“THEN JUST KILL ME!” she screamed back at him regaining some strength to her voice. “I have nothing to return to. _There’s nothing! Nothing! I ran away looking for refuge. There was nowhere else I could think of!_ ”

Rei couldn’t stop the sobs anymore, her head fell into her now once again bloodied hands from her unconscious scratching and she just sobbed. “ _Kill me. Just kill me. I have nothing to live for anyways. Kill me.”_

 _“Do it!”_ she sobbed. “ _Just kill me..._ ”

The silence of the room was only broken by her hitching breath and sobs.

“I don’t want to live anymore.” Rei cried into her hands. The terror she felt was overcoming all of her faculties. It didn’t matter anymore that she’d fought so hard to survive the attempt on her life. It didn’t matter that she’d run herself into the ground trying to get to Konoha.

She sobbed again as thoughts of her teammates and sensei entered her mind. If they saw her now, they wouldn’t believe she was the Rei they knew.

“I’m prepared to die. _Kill me_.” Her voice broke, and still she shook like a leaf.

The door to the room opened and closed in the silence of the room. And Rei found herself alone again. In the silence she slowly worked towards calming herself down as the sobbing had turned her head into a pounding mess. Her eyes hurt. And her hands stung. When she looked down at them, she was once again surprised by just how much damage she’d done to herself. The bandages were red with her blood. She dried her face in the crooks of her elbows and once again looked at the seals on the cuffs around her wrists before feeling herself slipping and giving up into the sense of hopelessness that had overtaken her.

The door opened, Rei didn’t bother to look who came in with the several sets of footsteps she heard. They spread out around the room, and dimly as she stared at the surface of the table, Rei thought to herself _this is it_. _Perhaps it would’ve been better just to die in her familiar valley forest_.

A hand was softly placed on her shoulder, jolting her out of her spiraling thoughts. She flinched at the contact, looking to her right to see the man with the silver hair and mostly covered face again. Rei couldn’t sense his chakra, but when she met his charcoal single-eyed gaze Rei involuntarily relaxed. _He saved her; surely he wouldn’t be the one to kill her?_

“Rei.” The grizzled voice of an old man said from in front of her.

She turned to look at him. He wore the distinctive robes of a Kage. Rei had seen the Raikage a few times, wearing the yellow cap. This man wore a red one with the symbol for Fire. Beneath it he was wrinkled with a greying beard. He held a pipe in his hands, before settling them behind his back.

“Rei,” he repeated. “Do you truly wish to die?”

Her voice caught in the back of her throat. The panic subsiding significantly and her racing heart slowed.

“…No.” she answered, red eyes flicking down at the table again before looking up at the old man. She felt surprised in herself that she’d ever been made to fall that far. Rei didn’t want to die, but in those moments with that scarred man, it was just the two of them in a small room, with Rei’s ability to fight at zero. Accused of being a spy from Kumo, as though everything she’d gone through didn’t matter. Hopelessness wasn’t a strong enough word to describe the sudden terror she’d felt with that man in the room.

“Hmmm.” He hummed to himself. “I apologize for the… harsh introductions. It seems you’ve come a long way. I would like to hear your full story. If you will,” he gestured to the other man in the room, blond in a ponytail with blue eyes, ”my companion will use a jutsu to read your mind to ensure everything you say is the truth.”

Rei nodded.

The silver haired man lightly squeezed her shoulder, but then stepped away to stand against the wall. The blond haired man cast his jutsu, and Rei felt a sort of buzzing in her mind. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was a persistent feeling.

And so, she began her tale. Starting with explaining what her clan’s ideals were, how she’d discovered her abnormality that made her an aberration within the clan, and explained how it decided everything in her life. She went on to talk about her sensei and teammates, and how she’d only ever been seriously taught taijutsu and weapons training. She went on to talk about how she’d taken her chuunin exams in Konoha five years prior, and how this was the only other nation she’d been to. Rei explained the situation where she was considered unfavorable to become the next head of the clan, and how her father had become increasingly hostile towards her over the last several years. And finally she spoke of the last night she’d spent in her valley, how she’d fought to survive, and ran across the continent to get to Konoha as her body fell apart.

When Rei finished her story, she was aware of the probing being done in her mind as if looking for more information. She didn’t fight it. There was no point.

The old man who she assumed is the Hokage of the Leaf, the silver haired man, and blond man all listened to her in silence. By the time Rei had finished talking her throat felt dry.

“What did you hope to find here in Konoha?” The old man fiddled with the pipe in his hands. “You’ve come a very long way.”

“I guess I hoped… to start over. I couldn’t stand to live and fight for a country where they’d let clans as extreme as mine just exist without consequence. I’ve always felt like there had to be more to me than just being… a bartering piece or a throw away heir. I just want a… I want a place I can call home for myself.” Rei spoke her truth, the deepest truth in the bottom of her heart.

The buzzing stopped in her head and the old man looked to the blond one. They seemed to share some wordless conversation, but the old man nodded again to himself before speaking.

“I already had some knowledge of your clan. The Kaminari are known as one of the more remote shinobi clans in The Land of Lightning. Your people have a reputation for being exceptionally gifted in stealth, espionage, assassination, and tracking. You have to understand that we needed to take all possible precautions.” He leveled a steady look at her. “However, I was not aware of a latent kekkei genkai in your clan. A black flame? That is incredibly interesting. Tell me more about it.”

“U-um,” Rei cleared her throat. “I don’t know much ninjutsu past what I’ve managed to teach myself during the rare opportunities. When I cast the flaming palm jutsu, the flame does not burn me. In fact if I touch something already burning with the flame, I remain unharmed. However, whatever the flame touches will burn until its ashes. The flame doesn’t spread like normal fire either; it kind of just stays where it is. I’ve experimented a little, so I know I can control the flame to some degree with my chakra but I don’t know to what extent. This all happens when I use normal fire style hand signs; my fireball jutsu is just black flames too.”

“Hmmm…” the old man grunted thoughtfully, tapping his pipe against his lips. “Rei, I would like to preface what I say next with this. First I ask that you allow us to perform a few more tests, and then second, you allow us to monitor you while you integrate into our village. I am offering you a place as a shinobi of Konoha, as you seem to possess a unique ability that would aid our people in the Land of Fire.”

Rei’s eyes widened in shock upon hearing his words. “ _Really?_ ”

“Yes, Konoha can become your new home, provided you meet us half-way.”

This time tears of relief fell from her eyes. All the stress she felt lifted from her shoulders in that moment, she felt weightless. Rei scrubbed at her eyes not realizing her fingers were still bloodied, but didn’t care anyways. This was what she’d wanted all along. A place to call home, _a place to make her own home_.

“ _Yes_. I’ll do it. Thank you. _Thank you!_ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning updates will take a while. I'm now a master's student and that comes first. But I'll probably get this story moving first before writing the other four. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this! It's been a long time coming. And I've got lots planned.


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